I was going
through one of my many emails when I came upon a bit of a write up for DUTV
that was headlined "Body Booting.". Yep, that was exactly my reaction
to the strange-sounding term, and I immediately wanted to find out what the
heck they were talking about.

Apparently,
it's somewhat of a tradition for Capt. Charles Jobes and family for hunting
ducks and Canada geese on the Susquehanna Flats around Chesapeake Bay, and they
began it back in the early 1950s for ducks, adapting it to geese later on.

The concept
here is to be where the ducks or geese are: in the water! They wear chest
waders or a survival suit and hunker down among a large spread of decoys in knee-
to chest-deep water."There
is something about standing in water several hundred yards off shore, in a
large spread of decoys, with birds coming right for you at eye level that will
make your heart jump into your throat," the write-up read.

Well, heck
yes! I used to do something similar out at Grizzly Island while hunting sprig
in the big, barren ponds out of parking lot 3 back in the 70s, when I would
wade out into the shallow ponds and literally lie down in 3 or 4 inches of
water, surrounded by a few dead bushes and all the decoys I could lug out
there. It was tiresome, uncomfortable, and sure, I got busted by a lot of
birds, but enough of them came close enough so that I always got my birds.

The piece
on Body Booting is or will be airing on the Outdoor Channel, DUTV.

Arizona
opens municipal lands to hunting

I was
surprised and please to find a story out of Phoenix, Arizona, where public
municipal lands in the great Phoenix metropolitan area were actually opened up
for the public to hunt in.

This was the
first year hunters were able to hunt much of the open, undeveloped public lands
within municipal boundaries, and wardens and law enforcement officials reported
nothing out of the ordinary in problems or calls into the Arizona Game and Fish
department.

How much
land was involved? A mind boggling million acres, according the Assistant Director
Leonard Ordway, who said that just as agency experts had predicted, opening
around a million acres to small game hunting actually spread out hunters,
reduced possible hunter congestion, and overall reduced potential conflicts.

Prior to
the opening of dove season on Sept. 1, Game and Fish officials designed and
implemented hunt strategies within municipalities that emphasized reducing potential
conflicts.

"We
certainly did our best to go the extra mile and work closely with municipal law
enforcement agencies. As we hoped, because hunters were better able to
determine where to hunt legally on open lands, conflicts and potential
violations truly diminished," Ordway said.

On the plus
side, Ordway said, lots of hunters have been thanking the department for
opening such vast tracts of open desert lands to small game hunting thanks to
Senate Bill 1334, which granted authority to regulate hunting within municipal
areas to the Arizona Game and Fish Commission.

Part of the
reason for the move was for the youth.

"Youth
who hunt and fish or routinely participate in other outdoor activities
typically do better in school, have better self esteem, have enhanced
problem-solving abilities, and demonstrate increased abilities to overcome
challenges," Ordway pointed out.

Studies
have also shown other increased attributes to participating in healthy outdoor
activities such as hunting, fishing, camping, hiking and wildlife watching.
Those include:

* Improved
mental strength and interpersonal dimensions, such as social competence,
cooperation and interpersonal communication skills.

It's
unlikely that anything like hunting municipal lands will come to California,
and in fact, it's quite the opposite. Almost all lands around the Bay area are
closed to most any activity, and certainly hunting. Despite a huge population
of destructive wild pigs, the public landowners there outlawed hunting and are
actually paying a hired hunter to kill and dispose of the pigs. Idiotic, but
that's California.

This is not regarding the above article, but Mr. Karr's stand and information regarding the HSUS, California F&G and US Wildlife. They are all taking money from HSUS, which only gives about 1% of it's money collected for animal welfare and is one of the largest, if not the largest anti-hunt/fish group in the U.S. I commend Mr. Karr and others that are trying to bring this to the attention of sportsmen and women. No one with any sport hunting/fishing should give any donations to this group. Bill K